Is it to "en finir avec cette idée des chefs-d'oeuvre" ("be done with this idea of masterpieces"), as Antonin Artaud proclaimed, that Gil J Wolman calls his recording Wolman et son double, in a détournement of Artaud's famous essay collection and "masterpiece" Le Théâtre et son double (The Theatre and Its Double) (1938)? Artaud's Tête-à-tête performance at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier on January 13, 1947, had a major impact on the future sound poets of the "poésie physique," François Dufrêne, Jean-Louis Brau, and Gil J Wolman. The "poésie physique" of Gil J Wolman, his "mégapneumie" (poems of breath and sound) appeared as soon as 1950 and eventually developed into an improvisation for breath and organic sounds originating from the throat and the whole body. The work seems to be designed to disturb the human aspect of speech. Wolman et son double, a previously unreleased recording probably from the late '70s, is Wolman's most theatrical -- as well as musical and lyrical -- piece. This is due to its duration and above all to its experimental recording techniques; Wolman records a series of improvisations on a 30-minute track, then mixes them with a new series of mégapneumes. The mixing and manipulations with echo and Larsen effects are a novelty if compared to the other mégapneumes recordings. The first track begins with a hum, immediately overlaid by Wolman's "poésie physique": hoarseness, cough, strangulation, twisting, wheeze, rumbling, hiccups, asphyxia; a whole set of gripes against himself and his speech. Wolman breaths and winces, he mimes the impacts, the scars of the blows by an invisible fighter, actually his double. Wolman et son double suggests a theatrical set, with characters entering the stage of the mégapneume. They are archetypes rather than psychological characters: a dybbuk or an old witch with a sardonic laugh; the drum major with his martial clicks; several warbling, trumpeting and barking animals, mad masters of a human speech conspiracy. Before the piece's end, an insolent call for a national strike is heard. Artaud observed that "actors in France no longer know how to do anything but talk"; Wolman et son double may well be the national strike from that show, from "masterpiece" art.

Presented in tri-fold digipak sleeve. Alga Marghen presents the "sixSIXsix"th installment of its Golden ResearchCharlemagne Palestine archive series: CharleBelllzzz at Saint Thomas. These previously unreleased recordings of Palestine's "Bells Studies" are both some of his earliest recordings and some of his darkest and most accomplished works. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if he'd be interested in playing a 26-bell carillon at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church. He decided that he loved the voluptuous Taylor bells, and played them every day from 1963 to 1970, when he left New York to study and teach at CalArts. During his time high above 53rd Street and 5th Avenue, accessible only by a spiral staircase, Palestine became known as the Quasimodo of midtown NYC, and his dissonant and "klanggdedangggebannggg" style of playing attracted a diverse group of fans, from Moondog to John Cage to Tony Conrad, among others. Palestine was able to continue playing his clanging-bell soap operas for seven years, dinggdonggingggg every late afternoon and Sunday mornings. "Bells Carillon" and "St Thomas Bells," both recorded at unidentified dates between 1966 and 1968, are maximal-bells-pure-resonating frontal attacks, building up in a structure that anticipates the later Strumming campaigns (SR 297CD). Unique and clashing dissonances created like an instinctive, spontaneous outburst. Palestine played the bells right next to his body. The sounds became physical, visceral; each crack of the clapper was like a small earthquake.

Edition of 400 copies. Includes original photos from the recording sessions. High up in a tower, accessible only by a spiral staircase that led to a concrete platform above the whole city, Charlemagne Palestine's "HellsBells" became the sonic mainstay of 53rd Street and 5th Avenue, NYC, from 1963 to 1970. In 1963, while attending The High School of Music & Art in New York, the 15-year-old Palestine was asked if he'd be interested in playing a 26-bell carillon at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church. He decided that he loved the voluptuous Taylor bells, and played them every day from 1963 to 1970, when he left New York to study and teach at CalArts. During his time above 53rd and 5th, Palestine became known as the Quasimodo of midtown NYC, and his dissonant and "klanggdedangggebannggg" style of playing attracted a diverse group of fans, from Moondog to John Cage to Tony Conrad, among others. Palestine was able to continue playing his clanging-bell soap operas for seven years, dinggdonggingggg every late afternoon and Sunday mornings. This LP collects some of the most relevant recordings from those early days. Side A presents the complete reel-tape "Bells Studies," an intense, pulsating work in five movements. It begins with slow, hypnotic, large sonorities and accelerates into more dense and maximal explosions. Side B collects some shorter studies: "Bells," the two parts of "Confiscated Bell Tape," and an excerpt from "Dumb Bell Tape." Each track was recorded by the composer in single takes around 1965 and unheard since, until now.

2015 remastered version of Alga Marghen's 2010 reissue of the Sonnabend Gallery's 1974 limited edition double LP. Presented in digipak sleeve with full-color 12-page booklet including two essays, originals score, and visual materials relating to the composition. Alga Marghen presents the fifth installment of its Golden ResearchCharlemagne Palestine archive series: Four Manifestations On Six Elements, one of Palestine's most well-known works. In 1973 the Sonnabend Gallery in New York commissioned Palestine to make Four Manifestations On Six Elements. "Two Perfect Fifths, a Major Third Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is an electronic piece that deals with the search for the essence of timbre -- sound color -- through exploration of the inert chemical activity in the overtone series of tone fundamentals. This genre of Palestine's work is akin to a kind of sound alchemy, blending elements over and over again in search of the Golden Sound: the essence of the chord or harmonic structure itself. In "One + Two + Three Perfect Fifths, in the Rhythm 3 Against 2, for Piano" (1973), Palestine uses the resonant Bösendorfer piano to create a more lively and complex variation of tones, intervals, overtones, and rhythms. "One Fifth" evolves by reinforcing the fundamentals of a fifth with their higher octave. Each performance of this work is different, as Palestine reinterprets these simple elements and listens within them for variations of amplitude, mixture, and inertia at the moment of the performance. "One + Two Fifths" deals with the way a rhythmic sonority sounds when the sustain pedal of the piano is not used, thus focusing on its rhythmic aspect. Gradually, by adding the sustain pedal, the external rhythmic pattern begins to internalize, becoming an inert part of the whole timbral fabric -- a piece expressing the struggle for dominance between rhythm and timbre. In "One + Two + Three" a third fifth is added -- variations of melody and sonority reinforcements culminating in a rhythmic deceleration process. "Sliding Fifths for Piano" (1972) is an impressionistic version of the three fifths used in the entire work. The continuous liquid waterfall of pure romantic piano sound and color is an homage to Debussy, Ravel, and Monet. "Three Perfect Fifths, a Major Second Apart, Reinforced Twice" (1973) is the complexification and continuation of track one. A pure and sonorous phenomenon.

2015 remastered CD in digipak with 12-page booklet including liner notes written by the composer as well as diagrams and scores relating to the published works. Wave Train, originally released by Alga Marghen in 1998, collects experimental works by David Behrman recorded between 1959 and 1968, featuring the Sonic Arts Union. The CD starts with "Canons," a short piece created in Darmstadt over three weeks in the summer of 1959 with David Tudor on piano and Christoph Caskel on percussion. "Ricercar" is a prepared piano piece made in 1961 and has the flexible form of the kind favored by European composers in the early 1960s, and also reflects the work of Cowell and Cage. "Wave Train" (1966), a powerful feedback piece performed live with Gordon Mumma, marks the radical moment when Behrman threw away established techniques. "Players With Circuits" (1966) is an exploration of raw materials; a combination of live electronics and amplified acoustic sound. "Sounds for a Film By Bob Watts," for outdoor environment recording and homemade synthesizer, was recorded at Stony Point, the artists' cooperative which John Cage, David Tudor, Sari Dienes, and other friends had established. The last piece, "Runthrough," was made for performance by members of the Sonic Arts Union: Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Robert Ashley, and, of course, Behrman himself; two of them working the dials and switches of homemade synthesizers, and two others distributing sound in space with homemade photocell mixers; Time Records released a different version of this piece in 1969.

Alga Marghen presents a 2015 remastered CD edition of its 2003 CD The Wolfman, a collection of pieces that introduce the listener to the most extreme experimental side of American composer Robert Ashley. Presented in digipak with 12-page booklet including liner notes written by the composer and the complete score of "The Wolfman," first issued in Source magazine. The program starts with "The Fox" (1957), Ashley's first electronic work, which displays his nascent electronic music theater style. Dark atmospheres and primitive tape collage techniques recorded at home, mixing the electronic tape and the voice in a single live pass. "The Wolfman" was composed in early 1964 and first performed at Charlotte Moorman's 1964 second Annual Avant Garde Festival of New York. The piece immediately won a considerable reputation as a threat to the listener's health. For the occasion, instigated by Morton Feldman, Ashley composed a piece of tape music, "The Wolfman Tape," to be played along with the vocal performance of "The Wolfman." The tape composition, played out of the same loudspeakers as the voice and the feedback (the main sound source for this composition), filled in the ongoing performance sound and transformed the performance into an elaborate version of drone under the influence of electronics. For the performance of "The Wolfman" recorded here, produced at the University of California, Davis, Ashley used a 1960 tape composition titled "The 4th of July." That composition changes gradually from a parabolic-microphone documentation of a backyard party into a layering of tape loops and tape-head feedback. "The Wolfman Tape" (1964) is, as described above, a tape composition made for a short performance of "The Wolfman." It uses tape-speed manipulation and mixes of many layers of found sounds, both from AM radio and from recordings made using different kinds of microphones. "The Bottleman" was composed in 1960 as music for an experimental film by George Manupelli. The 40-minute version presented here involves contact microphones on a surface that holds a loudspeaker some six feet away. The loudspeaker is broadcasting open-circuit hum (at the American standard of approximately 60 hertz). That pitch is raised slightly through tape manipulation and the result is mixed with vocal sounds and other found sounds played back at various tape speeds.

2015 repress. Remastered CD edition of Tazartès' Transports, autodidact and outsider composer Ghédalia Tazartès' 1980 second LP. This album probably represents the most original example of the artist's poetical and personal approach to sound organization. The tracks for Tazartès' Transports, recorded in 1977 at Tazartès' own studio in Paris, are blends of stream-of-consciousness rippling electro rhythms, outer-national singing styles, collaged field recordings, tape loops, and chants. The musique concrète soundscapes and exotic atmospheres take on a perpetual sense of drift and magical imagination. The listener is spellbound from the start to finish, through the deeply evocative peal of church bells and swirling synthetic textures in track 2, via humid sci-fi scenes and alien avian chatter on track 5, and the lost zones of the closing stages. This edition also includes four "Assassins" tracks, originally released on the 2006 mini-CD Les danseurs de la pluie (TES 063CD). The first two of these bonus tracks were recorded in 1977, around the time of the recording of Une éclipse totale de soleil (TES 005CD), and consist of banking guitar feedback, unhinged hollers, and an unsettling piece of children's screams looped against droning synth tones and electronic pulses. The second two "Assassins" tracks were recorded in 2005; "Assassin 3" is a mystical piece of ecstatic ululations and plangent electric guitar riffs, while "Assassin 4" feels more opulent, with plush synth pads set against strange, strafing distortion, rhythmic exhortations, and surreal, cinematic percussion. This edition concludes with a final bonus track, "Elie," a charming piano piece performed as a duet with Tazartès' young daughter. Once again, Tazartès provides some of the most compelling, weirdly life-affirming music out there.

2015 repress. Remastered CD edition of Une éclipse totale de soleil, Ghédalia Tazartès' third LP, originally released in 1984. Far away from contemporary music intellectualisms and the works of synthetic noise purists, this album features a new form of musical expression and is certainly one of the most original and creative records of the '80s. The value of this work was at the time underestimated and only a few people had a chance to listen to this beautiful music. The record utilizes collage, Tazartès' unique vocals, trance-ethno backing splices, droning organ, and childish naiveté, in a spirit all its own. Originally conceived in two parts, Une éclipse totale de soleil is here supplemented with a 25-minute piece titled "Il regalo della befana" or "Une éclipse totale de soleil (Part III)," composed expressly for the original 1996 release of this CD edition. The original two parts are constructed from sung passages of Middle Eastern musics, drum machine noises, distorted signals, and the voices of small children. The newer third part takes some of the same sorts of cues but is more in keeping with turntablism or sampling culture, dipping into recordings recycled from pop culture. Tazartès' music compiles fragments from a wide variety of sources in a stunning, idiomatic fashion, still undiminished by the passage of time.

2015 repress. This lavish set includes the complete Ghédalia Tazartès recordings previously issued on CD by Alga Marghen. This edition is presented in a newly designed slipcase box including 4 CDs in elegant slim digipak sleeves. Diasporas is the CD edition of Tazartès' 1979 first album, also including "Ferme ta gueule, Zarathustra" (previously issued as side A of Granny Awards (ALGA 036LP)). Tazartès' Transports is the CD edition of Tazartès' 1980 second album complete with four "Assassins" bonus tracks (previously issued as the mini-CD Les danseurs de la pluie (TES 063CD)). Une éclipse totale de soleil is the CD edition of Tazartès' 1984 third album. Originally conceived in two parts, this CD edition is completed by the long bonus track "Il regalo della befana," or "Une éclipse totale de soleil (Part III)" and "Elie," a charming piano piece performed as a duet with Tazartès' young daughter. Tazartès is the CD edition of Tazartès' 1987 fourth album, also including "Whatever Works Singing Wild My Rock Ghédalia" (previously issued as side B of Granny Awards (ALGA 036LP)). Ghédalia Tazartès is a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. He paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. Tazartès is an orchestra and a pop group all in one person: the self is multitude and others. The author and his doubles work without a net, freely connecting the sounds, the rhythms, his voice, his voices. The permanent metamorphosis is a principle of composition. To hell with the technocrats of noise and the purists of synthetic culture; this music refuses classification and escapes control.

Remastered CD edition of Diasporas, Ghédalia Tazartès' 1979 debut LP. Now available as an expanded individual CD, this edition was previously only available as part of a CD containing both Diasporas and Tazartès' 1987 self-titled fourth album, which is also now available in an expanded CD edition (TES 089CD). In addition to the entire original release of Diasporas, this CD includes the first CD release of "Ferme ta gueule, Zarathustra," a composition largely based on materials pre-dating Diasporas, originally issued as side A of Granny Awards (ALGA 036LP). In "Ferme ta gueule, Zarathustra," Tazartès freely connects Raphaël Glucksmann's garbled voix d'enfant with intoxicating, slow-moving, and sustained synth chords, before jump-cutting into bird calls, dissonant arabesque strings, and eccentric vocalizations with a blinding sense of freedom. Ghédalia Tazartès is a nomad. He wanders through music from chant to rhythm, from one voice to another. He paves the way for the electric and the vocal paths, between the muezzin psalmody and the screaming of a rocker. Tazartès is an orchestra and a pop group all in one person: the self is multitude and others. The author and his doubles work without a net, freely connecting the sounds, the rhythms, his voice, his voices. The permanent metamorphosis is a principle of composition. To hell with the technocrats of noise and the purists of synthetic culture; this music refuses classification and escapes control.